Art makes us Human

Oh how I love this bear!

I love art. I don't mean that I love every piece of art that has ever been produced, but that I love how art can evoke feelings, provoke discussions and teach things that wouldn’t be learnt in any other way.

Last week I heard a radio interview with a retired farmer who had finally fulfilled his dream of opening an art gallery in his old cow sheds. He financed this dream by selling off most of his land and I suppose it was deemed newsworthy because farmers are very much perceived as being down to earth and uncultured. You can read Stephen Dale’s fascinating story here. He was inspired by a visit to the Tate Gallery to view a controversial work by Carl André, commonly known as Bricks. I remember this work being dismissed as rubbish at the time - how can a pile of bricks be art? Nevertheless, at a time in his life when Stephen Dale needed inspiration, this work provided it and prompted a lifetime’s passion. Surely that makes it worthy of the label ‘art’.

I don't get it...it's Barbara Hepworth,
just appreciate its beauty!

When I was attempting to deliver the art curriculum to my SEN / ASD students, I would often show them examples of works by well known artists - Warhol, Kandinsky, Hepworth, Moore - and would defend them to some of my staff team who persisted in saying ‘I don’t get it’. I don’t suppose many of my pupils ‘got it’ either, but they were able to use the images as a springboard to be creative themselves, and some of the work they produced was amazing. Art can be about the process as well as the outcome, and both should be of equal value. 

My friend and I recently stumbled upon an exhibition of art work by people who attend Headway, a charity that supports individuals who have an acquired brain injury. They use art both as physical therapy and also as a means of expression. It was clear from the work on show that some people were more skilled than others, but it was the emotional content that was so compelling - collages of words that express how they felt about themselves; pictures of fragmented brains; isolated figures - the images helped me to understand  far more about the impact of a brain injury than a leaflet would have done. Art - I love it.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - glorious!

I have to admit that art in the outdoors appeals to me most of all - Yorkshire Sculpture Park is spectacular and standing beneath the Angel of the North was breathtaking - so I was thrilled to happen upon an artwork at Runnymede near Windsor when we were travelling down to Cornwall last year. We stopped for some lunch and saw some chairs in the middle of a field. Wanting to stretch our legs we decided to investigate and discovered an amazing installation called ‘The Jurors’ by Hew Locke.

The Jurors, Runnymede

It was commissioned to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta and taught me more about the fight for human rights than I had learned in the previous sixty years! The jury system has its origins in the Magna Carta (new information!), and each of the twelve bronze chairs had images and symbols depicting struggles for freedom and equal rights. 

I learnt so much

We spent ages exploring each of the chairs, marvelling at the craftsmanship but also finding out more about human history in the process. I’m terrible - I never read the ‘blurb’ in museums - but I found things out almost by osmosis. Art…so powerful.

In these times of enforced public austerity, there is an understandable resistance to publicly funded art, and it's undoubtedly difficult to make the case for spending money on a sculpture when much of social housing is unfit for habitation. But there has to be more to life than just existing - responding to art work is part of being human.

A cry-drop...heartbreaking

While I was thinking about this post I remembered walking through the grounds of the cathedral in Bury St Edmunds with our granddaughter. We came across a sculpture that was a memorial for the victims of the Holocaust, and she said, ‘Look Nanny, a cry-drop’. She was four, unaware of the Holocaust, unable to read the accompanying plaque, but her response to the artwork - a cry-drop. She instinctively knew it was sad. Art - I love it.

Whether you get it or not, art makes us human